Our shambolic energy policy needs more than just competition | Simon Jenkins

The government is right to try and break the big six oligopoly, but a deep audit is required if we are to aid the poor or the planet

Britain's energy policy is chaotic, lost in a morass of subsidies, regulations, lobbies and taboos. No one can understand it, which is why most retreat to slogans and prejudice. The revelation that British Gas treats my "direct debit" credit balance as a free loan merely adds fury to my own contribution.

The government is proposing to give the statutory regulators...